Editor and Researcher Elisa Vandernoot

American Freedom Alliance Weekly Gazette

THE WEEK AT A GLANCE

This Week's Editorial

Earth Day as Global Guilt Fest
By Avi Davis

There are plenty of people around today who can tell you about the first Earth Day, held on April 22, 1970.   They are in their late 50s and early 60s  now, but back then they were students, part of the Woodstock Generation and eager to find a cause to which to attach themselves.   In the midst of the Vietnam War, in which defoliants such as Agent Orange were used to strip away forests concealing enemy combatants and a  massive oil spill had contaminated the Southern California coastline, the idea of celebrating the Earth and its natural bounty seemed a redeeming response to human despoliation.

But there was, surprisingly, already an  “Earth Day” in existence in 1970 that had been enthusiastically celebrated for close to 100 years.  Arbor Day had been instituted in 1872 in Nebraska by Julius Morton, a Michigan transplant, who felt that the planting of trees could bring life again to the Great Plains.  He believed that tree planting was “no more than a desire to pay a just debt to our forefathers who had cultivated trees before us.”  Tree husbandry was also an expression of the human impulse to increase the beauty of the land, “to endeavor to make the world lovely because he has been a dweller on it.” On the very first Arbor Day alone, one million trees were planted.

You would hardly know it, but National Arbor Day is still around and is organized and coordinated by the non-profit organization Arbor Day Foundation, whose sole mission is to support the planting and maintenance of trees.  It may seem decidedly uncool and retrograde to support such a moribund notion, but in fact today’s environmentalists could learn a great deal from the arborists.  They could learn that all global warming could be dealt with through a massive reafforestation program around the world.  They could be guided by the goodwill and genuine level of cooperation between arborists.   And they could absorb that love for nature, rather than contempt for humanity, should be the ultimate guiding principle of any environmental movement.

Because contempt for humanity and censure  for its transgressions are at the core of today’s environmental movement.  Global warming hysteria has clearly taken aim at human incompetence in managing the environment.  Animal rights organizations regularly decry the hubris of human beings who consider themselves as in some way superior to the animal kingdom;  And supporters of such outré international policy platforms as Agenda 21 regularly dismiss  inconvenient notions such as individual property rights, as an interference in their quest to save the planet.

In contrast, National Arbor Day is pro-human and focuses on human productivity and hope for the future.   ”The only stand we take,” says Mark Derowitsch of the Arbor Day Foundation, “is that it’s a great thing to plant trees.” Arbor Day does not require nor ask for government intervention, regulation, restriction or taxation.  All it calls for is publicly spirited individuals and organizations to plant trees. “Anyone can plant a tree,” says Derowitsch. “You get your hands dirty and make a huge difference in the world.”

Is it any wonder that many people who once called themselves environmentalists are now loathe to do so because of that term’s negative connotations?    In 1990, according to an ABC News/Gallup survey series, 75 percent of Americans surveyed  said they considered themselves to be environmentalists.    But those  numbers have been slowly reversing over the last decade.  As of 2008 (the most recent year the question was asked), only 41 percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, with 58 percent now saying they do not.

And Gallup’s annual environmental survey also finds the public now favors economic growth over environmental protection by a 53-38 margin. For most of the last 25 years, even during previous recessions, the public favored the environment over the economy by as much as a two-to-one margin.  That trend is now reversing itself  as more and more citizens begin to understand that absurd environmental moratoria are making it impossible to compete with countries that are not so hindered.  Meanwhile, opinion in favor of increased oil and gas exploration is surging, just as is the demand for nuclear power as a safe, cheap and clean alternative to fossil fuels.

Perhaps this is all because the militancy of the environmental movement has turned people against it as they increasingly realize that such self aggrandizing organizations as  Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, National Defense Resources Council and Environmental Defense Fund have transformed  from grass roots advocacy institutions into multimillion dollar fund raising franchises, with radical political agendas which stray far from their original mission of environmental protection.

That is not to mention the widespread realization of the alarming religious overtones which have crept into environmental language.  In 1990, the Earth Day Foundation introduced The Equinoctial Earth Day, celebrated on the March equinox (around March 20) to mark the precise moment of astronomical mid-spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and of astronomical mid-autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.   Solstice festivals are pagan in origin, going back to the earliest days of civilization.   In 1992, Maurice Strong, the Secretary-General of the Earth Conference, hinted at the overtly religious agenda proposed for a future Earth Charter( 2000), when in his opening address to the Rio delegates he said, “It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light…….We must therefore transform our attitudes and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature.”  Strong finished with unanimous applause from the crowd.

In anticipation of the conference, his wife, Hanne Strong, held a three-week vigil with Wisdomkeepers, a group of “global transformationalists.” Through round-the-clock sacred fire, drumbeat, and meditation, the group helped hold the “energy pattern” for the duration of the summit.

As if to prove the wild eyed ambition of  this New Age millenarianism, authors of the Earth Charter, an environmental manifesto promulgated at a UNESCO meeting held in Paris in March, 2000 commissioned the building of The Ark of Hope , a latter day replica of the Ark of the Covenant as a place of refuge for the Earth Charter document.   The Ark was later brought on foot to New York City from Vermont (just as the Ancient Israelites had once carried their Ark) and exhibited at the United Nations.

Is it any wonder that Strong would therefore comment after the promulgation of the Earth Charter:  “The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments?”

Or that Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the  world’s leading proponents of sustainability could state: “ Do not do unto the environment of others what you do not want done to your own environment….My hope is that this Charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a ‘Sermon on the Mount’, that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century?”

In preparation for AFA’s The Green Movement Seminar in February, 2010,  all of the speakers explained to me that they must regularly qualify themselves as sincere supporters of  clean air and pure water before launching into any jeremiad against the environmental movement.   This is largely a result of the guilt laid upon our society by environmentalists/ecologists over the past 40 years, who insist that mankind is preternaturally oriented towards environmental degradation.

With such a sad record of negativism, there should be little wonder that this year’s Earth Day, on the 40th  anniversary of that seminal event, has passed by with a whisper, not a bang.   Perhaps it is because Americans are beginning to understand that the world is not quite  as grim a place as the Earth Day promoters would have us believe.  Or that our future is indeed tethered to an environment that is put to humanity’s use and better purposes and not the other way around.

Avi Davis is the President of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. His writings and blog entries can be found at The Intermediate Zone and the Los Angeles Jewish Journal Blog  On The Other Hand.

 

 

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View the best of The Intermediate Zone from last week:

ANZAC DAY: WELL DONE TED Sunday, April 25, 2010
FALLEN Saturday, April 24, 2010
GOOD WILLIAM HUNTING Friday, April 23, 2010
EARTH DAY AS GLOBAL GUILT FEST Thursday, April 22, 2010
HAS THE UNITED STATES GIVEN UP ON MISSILE DEFENSE? Wed., April 21, 2010
OKLAHOMA CITY, COLUMBINE AND WACO IN POPULAR MEMORY Tue, April 20, 2010
ISRAEL AND THE MEANING OF INDPENDENCE Monday, April 19, 2010


Avi Davis can be contacted at adavis@americanfreedomalliance.org

NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA

Police Let Terrorist Slip Through- SEAN GARDINER
Port Authority police were told to stop and search would-be subway bomber Najibullah Zazi's car last September as he drove up to the George Washington Bridge—but waved him across without finding two pounds of explosives hidden inside. The failure to uncover the explosives after an alert about Mr. Zazi from the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been widely discussed among police but never publicly disclosed. It stoked longstanding tensions between the Port Authority Police and the New York Police Department, which are more pronounced since the 9/11 attacks. The Port Authority is tasked with protecting the bridges, tunnels and major airports between New York and New Jersey. The Zazi case is especially sensitive for New York police, who privately argue that letting Mr. Zazi continue into the city was a potentially catastrophic gaffe by the Port Authority Police. Several NYPD detectives were accused of short-circuiting the case by talking to a Queens-based imam who worked as an NYPD informant. The imam was accused of alerting Mr. Zazi that police were on to him. (WSJ)

How NY Officials Prepare for Threat of a Dirty Bomb-Bob Hennelly
This week, at a 47-country international nuclear security conference, President Barack Obama took the opportunity to state a change in U.S. policy. The U.S. will now rank a potential nuclear attack by terrorists as the nation's top threat, not incoming missiles from Russia. It's a scenario that U.S. intelligence professionals and those tasked to protect New York City have worried about for years: Terrorists acquire the material for an atomic bomb and detonate it in the U.S. “The likelihood of an atomic bomb is much less because the technology for nuclear detonation is complicated and requires some special elements,” says Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. He says assembling and deploying a so-called dirty bomb would be a lot easier for terrorists. “A radiological bomb is nothing more than radioactive material imbedded in, or wrapped around a conventional explosive so that is a much easier type of device to construct and also to get the material for. So, it is not a fanciful thing to focus on," Chertoff says. Since 9/11, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has committed 1,000 officers to a global counter-terrorism program that is closely integrated with the federal counter-terrorism efforts. Kelly says even though the dirty bomb is not an atomic blast, it could have major consequences. “What it can do, besides the damage of the conventional explosive effect, would be to prevent you from going into an area, making it a hot zone for conceivably a very long time -- years perhaps, or even longer than that," Kelly says. (WNCY)

Hyperfast missile to hit anywhere in an hour-Tony Allen-Mills in Washington
HAUNTED by the memory of a lost opportunity to kill Osama Bin Laden before he attacked the World Trade Center in New York, US military planners have won President Barack Obama’s support for a new generation of high-speed weapons that are intended to strike anywhere on Earth within an hour. Obama’s interest in Prompt Global Strike (PGS), a nonnuclear weapons programme, has alarmed China and Russia and complicated nuclear arms reduction negotiations. White House officials confirmed last week that the president, who won the Nobel peace prize last year, is considering the deployment of a new class of hypersonic guided missiles that can reach their targets at speeds of Mach 5 — about 3,600mph. That is nearly seven times faster than the 550mph Tomahawk cruise missiles that arrived too late to kill Bin Laden at an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 1998. “The ability to attack a wide range of targets at intercontinental range, promptly and without resort to nuclear weapons, is of central importance to US national security,” said Daniel Goure, a defence analyst at the Lexington Institute in Virginia. The White House has requested almost $250m in congressional funding next year for research into hypersonic technologies, some of which harness the shock waves generated by a fast-moving missile to increase its speed further. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Court awards damages after genital mutilation test
Uppsala Municipality has been ordered to pay 60,000 kronor ($8,400) to the family of a girl of Somali origin who was forced to undergo an examination to check whether she had been circumcised. Uppsala social workers forced the then 10-year-old girl to submit to the examination to see whether she had been subjected to genital mutilation (circumcision) while on a family holiday in Kenya in 2004. The girl was collected by police from school shortly after returning from a visit to relatives. The girl's family took their case to the Discrimination Ombudsman (DO) which ruled in 2007 that the social workers' suspicions constituted discrimination. Discrimination Ombudsman Katri Linna concluded in her 2007 ruling that the suspicions "were based entirely on the fact that the parents have Somalian heritage." The decision to examine the girl was taken despite the fact that the parents had told their district nurse and social workers that they were opposed to female circumcision and that they were going to Kenya with the sole purpose of seeing their relatives. The examination showed that the girl had not been circumcised.

Netherlands: No Sharia courts
There are no Sharia courts.. in the narrow sense of the word. But the big brouhaha about Sharia courts in the UK, for example, concerned using Sharia law in the process of arbitration. As this study shows, such arbitration councils exist in the Netherlands.
There are no Sharia courts in the Netherlands, according to a study by Radboud University Nijmegen for the the Research and Documentation Center of the Ministry of Justice. Due to the ethnic and religious diversity of Dutch Muslim groups, the existence of an official legal institute for all Muslims in the Netherlands is not really possible. The study was sent by Minister Hirsch Ballin (Justice) and Middelkoop (Integration) to the Dutch parliament with the cabinet's response. There are practices of counseling and conflict-arbitration on the basis of Sharia in the Netherlands. Many Muslims in the Netherlands ask in their circle or among Islam scholars for advice about issues in which Islamic concepts and life in Dutch society offer choices. Together they look for the best solution in the given circumstances: how can an individual Muslim live in an non-Islamic country by Islamic law. These are much more often arbitration, rather than the settling disputes. The most important conclusion from the study admittedly removes the concern about the possible existence of Sharia courts in the Netherlands, but the cabinet still sees it as its job to ensure that there will be no parallel societies in which people take the law into their own hands, or have their own legal system which goes outside our own legal order. (Islamineurope)

'Imam for Peace' Sows Discontent-Ullrich Fichtner
What happens when a Muslim cleric embraces the values of the West? In France, President Sarkozy is using the teachings of one imam for his own purposes. Hassen Chalghoumi, who has backed calls for a burqa ban, now faces threats from his own community. Hassen Chalghoumi is the best-known imam in France and easily the most controversial, even though he preaches peace instead of hate. Police cars are stationed in front of his mosque during Friday prayers, and he has two bodyguards with him at all times when he goes out in public. Sometimes, when it all becomes too much for him, he takes his wife and their five children and goes away for a week or two, in the hope that all the excitement over him and the ideas he preaches will calm down again,. But the tactic hasn't worked so far, because the whole thing flares up again as soon as he returns home. Chalghoumi has led a hectic life in recent weeks. There are 5 million Muslims in France, although there could even be as many as 8 million, no one knows for sure. Some have been there for a long time while others are recent immigrants. Within this population, there are believed to be 1,400 women who wear either the large full-body veil, the burqa, in black or blue, or the niqab, the full veil that covers the face apart from the eyes, although that number could also be as low as 400. In any case, Chalghoumi dared to publicly condemn the wearing of the full veil, and he welcomed the idea of outlawing it -- something that may have been ill-advised. Chalghoumi's is a man who doesn't reveal much about himself, while others seem to think that they know everything about him. What is indisputable is that he was born in Tunis in 1972, immigrated to France in 1996 and became a French citizen in 2000, or perhaps it wasn't until two years later. Sometimes Chalghoumi contradicts himself, or he doesn't remember the details correctly, or he is quoted out of context. It isn't easy to figure him out, but it is easy to like him. He is a gentle person, a man with the grace of a professional dancer. (Spiegelonline)

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Earth Day Thoughts on the Campus Sustainability Movement-Peter Wood
The dominant ideology on American college campuses in 2010 is sustainability. It wraps together environmental alarmism, anti-capitalism, and a potpourri of “social justice” claims on behalf of women and minorities. If Greenland’s glaciers melt, Third World women will be hurt worst. UNESCO spends a lot of time and money teasing out the causal chain between fossil fuel burned in Ohio and political oppression in Ouagadougou. Uncovering supposedly hidden connections is, of course, an activity wonderfully well suited to intellectuals. It flatters their vanity. They can see further and deeper than the uninitiated—or at least they imagine so. This was a significant part of the appeal of Marxism. It offered a way of seeing through the facts to a supposedly coherent explanation of how everything fit together. While it is best to speak of Marxism in the past tense since it has no mass following anywhere today, it does of course linger in a few places. It is a sub-strata of academic feminism; it is the unacknowledged creed of ACORN-style activists; it is twisted into the DNA of many history and English departments; and it provides a goodly share of the “theory” that underwrites the amour propre of culturally disaffected college professors. One doesn’t have to be a self-professed Marxist to find aid and comfort in Marxist analysis. It can be worn as the intellectual equivalent of an arm band, and taken off on those occasions when the professor actually has something of interest to say. (NAS)

'Are Jewish Students Safe on California Campuses?-Leila Beckwith and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin
On Feb. 13th, Al-Awda (The Palestine Right to Return Coalition) held its Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference in the La Mesa Community Center in San Diego. Undercover investigative journalist Lee Kaplan attended the meeting and wrote an article that raises several issues that should be very troubling for anyone concerned about the safety of Jewish students on California campuses. Al-Awda is an organization that, according to the Anti-Defamation League, opposes Israel's right to exist; supports groups on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Hezb'allah; organizes numerous rallies, demonstrations, and events to demonize Israel and her supporters; and actively encourages boycott, divestment, and sanctions in order to isolate and economically strangle the Jewish state. (Two of Al-Awda's three co-founders are leaders of major anti-Israel boycott campaigns: Mazin Qumsiyeh co-founded the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign, and Jess Ghannam co-founded the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel). Al-Awda's annual international conventions and regional conferences feature virulently anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic speakers and films, as well as workshops which teach how to mount successful boycott and divestment campaigns against Israel. Unfortunately, Al-Awda has also made significant inroads on college and university campuses in North America by partnering with dozens of Muslim and pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel student groups. (Americanthinker)

MEDIA BIAS

Blacks, the Media & the Tea Parties-Lloyd Marcus
I am exhausted. I returned home after performing at tea parties in 42 cities from Searchlight, Nevada to Washington D.C. in 19 days while on Tea Party Express III tour. I'm black conservative singer/songwriter, entertainer, author and spokesperson Lloyd Marcus. I wish to share with you how the liberal mainstream media has dealt with my participation on the Tea Party Express III tour. Liberal mainstream media all but call me an Uncle Tom. Their reports imply that I am a token black too stupid to realize I am being used by the tea party movement. In typical liberal mainstream media arrogance, they are totally blind to the blatant racism of their reporting. Because I do not fit the liberal mainstream media's "all blacks must vote liberal and believe America is racist and unjust" template, I must be an idiot. As a matter of fact, because I am a black man who loves his country and proclaims America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it, much of liberal media considers me dangerous and even wishes me harm. The liberal mainstream media is relentless in their quest to portray the tea party patriots as racist. And yet, I have performed my song, "American Tea Party Anthem" at over 150 tea parties, been treated like a rock star and have even seen signs which read, "Lloyd Marcus for President!" Not one tea party attendee has ever called me the N-word. (Familysecuritymatters)

Guns vs. Butter-Frederick W. Kagan
It’s time to set straight a myth that has persisted for many decades, perpetuated most recently by Arianna Huffington in her post, “Guns vs. Butter 2010.” The myth is that, as she put it quoting Eisenhower, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” The fact is that the idea that a dollar spent on defense is a dollar not spent on helping Americans is entirely false. Leave aside the debate over the wisdom of American involvement in the world or the desirability of winning ongoing conflicts rather than losing them. The simple fact is that the overwhelming proportion of every dollar spent on defense goes straight back into the American economy. Defense spending has long been recognized as one of the single strongest stimulants to any economy. World War II brought America out of the Great Depression and into an era of enormous prosperity, just to cite the most obvious example. Current defense spending will not have that effect because it is so small compared to the size of the economy—it hovers at or below 4 percent of GDP. But forget those statistics and precedents as well and focus on something more concrete. A very large portion of the defense budget goes to paying the salaries of something like 5 million Americans. Since American forces deployed overseas do not live on the local economy, almost all of that money goes either to their families here at home or to the concessions that serve them abroad generally run by U.S. contractors. One can feel about contractors however one pleases, but U.S. contractors are American firms and their earnings and most of their wages also go back into the American economy. (Weeklystandard)

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Sweden: University cancels Vilks lecture
Artist Lars Vilks was invited by Jönköping University to speak about freedom of speech. But the seminar was canceled for security reasons. "I've understood that Muslim students protested," says Lars Vilks. The politically independent Foreign Policy Association at Jönköping University was forced to cancel a lecture with controversial artist Lars Vilks. Vilks, who's known in the Middle East for his cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed, was supposed to come to Jönköping on Thursday. But yesterday he was told that association canceled the lecture. Due to the security risk, the International Business School, the Culture Center and Hotel Victoria, all refused to offer their premises. "First we asked if we could have the event elsewhere instead of at the school, but we got the same answer from everybody that it's the main reason," says Johan Nordberg of the non-profit association. Have there been any threats? "We haven't received any direct threats at all, neither did Vilks. But we've heard angry voices, but it's well in the lecture's nature that it will be so." Lars Vilks definitely thinks that Muslim students are behind the protests. (islamineurope)

Re ‘South Park,’ the Silence of the Media Lambs Continues-Frank Ross
That sound you’re not hearing is the media, holed up in their towers along Sixth Avenue and across the street from the old Show World Center porn palace on Eighth Avenue, noisily rising to the defense of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the South Park creators who recently upset the tender Muslim sensibilities of this guy: That would be Zachary Chesser, or as he currently styles himself, Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee. This 20-year-old from Fairfax, Va., trolling away on his blog, was able to get Comedy Central to censor one of the most popular and lucrative shows in its lineup merely by suggesting that Stone and Parker might meet the same fate that befell Theo Van Gogh when he “outraged” Muslim sensibilities. Most of the stories so far have been along the lines of this one from the Los Angeles Times, which examines the “dilemma” media companies face in dealing with controversial subject matter: The network may have thought it had no choice after revolutionmuslim.com, the website of a fringe group, delivered a grim warning about last week’s episode, which depicted Muhammad dressed as a bear.
“We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” the posting said. A photo of Van Gogh’s body lying in the street was included with the original posting, which has been unavailable to some Web users since news of the item broke earlier this week. “This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.” (Bigjournalism)

Media leave 'South Park' creators out to dry-Diana West
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of "South Park," get it.
They get the free-speech significance of the Danish Muhammad cartoons epitomized by Kurt Westergaard's bomb-head Muhammad. They even get it across. "It's so sad, the whole Muhammad, the whole Danish cartoon thing," said Stone, Parker seated beside him during a joint interview with the entertainment Web site Boing Boing. Don't laugh. Boing Boing here goes where "elite" media fear to tiptoe, let alone tread.
The subject was the 200th episode of "South Park," which, in unusually clean if satirical fashion, focused on Islam's fanatical, and, to Western sensibilities, ridiculous prohibitions on depictions and criticism of Muhammad, who is at one point presented in a bear suit. (Now you can laugh.) Stone continued: "It's like, if everyone would have just, like, normally they do in the news organizations, just printed the cartoons -" "Everyone would have rallied together," interjected Parker. "Now that guy [Westergaard] has to be hiding and all this [bleep] because everyone just kind of left him out to dry. It's a big problem when you have the New York Times and Comedy Central and Viacom basically just [wimping] out on it. It's just sad. I was, like, really sad about the whole thing." This -- despite the grubby Valspeak-ish patois of the astronomically successful Hollywood postmodern -- is a singularly powerful statement. It is powerful in its sincerity, and it is singular in its, well, singularity. No other American "name" I can think of, no one tops in pop culture, has spoken out against (or even mentioned) the Islamic threat to Western freedom of expression as exemplified by the Sharia dictates against "Motooning." Certainly no one has produced creative content about it. Rather, such dictates have been religiously followed -- no pun whatsoever intended -- just as though our society were itself officially Islamic. This makes "South Park's" message the closest thing yet to a mainstream declaration of independence from Sharia. For rejecting both the threat of violence and the emotional blackmail emanating from Islam over critiquing Islam's prophet, the two "South Park" creators deserve a medal. (Washingtonexaminer)

ANTISEMITISM

Hamas Posts Shocking Shalit Psychological Warfare Video-Hana Levi Julian
(Israelnationalnews.com) The Hamas terrorist organization posted a shocking new video on Sunday (view below) about the fate of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, abducted nearly four years ago in a cross-border raid near Gaza. He is assumed to be alive, but his condition is not known, and Hamas has not honored the Geneva Convention, which requires visits by Red Cross officials. The three-minute video, which hinted that the young Israeli soldier would share the fate of longtime missing Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, was clearly produced to wage psychological warfare against the Netanyahu government and the People of Israel. The Izz a-Din al-Qassam military wing of Hamas announced early Sunday morning that it intended to publish a special message to the “Zionist public” and shortly afterward posted an animated video. Attached to the clip was a message stating “If the sovereign Zionist public wants [Shalit's] safe return, the Zionist government will have to pay with the release of Palestinian prisoners.” The statement added, “If you reject the current terms, you will nevertheless still need to release them, sooner or later, at a higher price,” and noted that if Israel delayed further, Shalit would share the fate of the missing Ron Arad. The Shalit family's official response was to point out that “Hamas would do better to concern itself with the true interests of the Palestinian prisoners and the citizens of Gaza, who have become hostages of their leaders, instead of putting on films and displays.” Noam Shalit, father of the soldier. told reporters that it was “regrettable that the leaders of Hamas time and time against choose to employ psychological warfare – for the umpteenth time – against the Shalit family and the State of Israel.” He added that the terrorist group had not responded to Israel's latest offer for a prisoner exchange, which has “lain on their table for four months, unanswered.” (INN)

“We Are All Israelis”-Michael Ledeen
This afternoon I spoke to a rally in New York organized by Beth Gilinsky’s Action Alliance. The big crowd, despite miserable weather, filled the sidewalk on Second Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets. Lots of terrific speakers spoke passionately about the need to support Israel against the shocking treatment from American leaders. Here are my prepared remarks:
We are at war. It’s a global war. It extends from Pakistan and Afghanistan to India, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and from there towards Israel and then down to Egypt, Sudan and Somalia, and west to Europe and ultimately to America. It targets Canada and Australia, Honduras and Colombia, and all those who challenge fanatical intolerance and instead advocate freedom. It is a continuation of the ancient war of tyranny against freedom, a war that will endure so long as freedom threatens the power and legitimacy of monarchs and dictators. That war — a war of awesome dimensions, a war with a long and bloody history — is not the consequence of this or that unpopular policy but above all of beliefs we are not even supposed to pronounce nowadays: the crazed visions of Muslim extremists who are waging jihad against us. And the beliefs of radical secular extremists who share the goals of jihad. That war is being waged by people who hate America and Israel, as they hate Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, and those many Muslims who want to live in peace. What? Did you forget that the Taliban destroyed statues of Buddha? Does anybody believe that they would have been spared if there were peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority? Yet there are those — people in positions of great prestige and power, some in government, some in the press, some in the universities — who insist that all would be well if only Prime Minister Netanyahu told a few Jews they can’t live in a certain neighborhood of Jerusalem. That Israel’s enemies — who are also OUR enemies — would scrap their global jihad if only there were one more Arab country in the Middle East. To demonstrate their conviction that Israel is the problem, these people treat Israel’s enemies — who are also OUR enemies — with greater respect than they showed Israelis. Prime Minister Netanyahu is treated as an unwelcome guest at the White House while radical Islamists are constantly asked, very politely, to be reasonable and to become our friends. Sometimes they even receive a bow. (Pajamasmedia)

Nick Clegg’s Israel-bashing is sickening-Nile Gardiner
With Thursday night’s foreign policy debate looming, it’s important to take a look at Nick Clegg’s willingness to vilify Israel, and his inclination towards bashing the Israelis over the head. I’ve written about Clegg’sdistinctly anti-American views and his complete disregard for the NATO alliance, but his policies towards Israel deserve attention as well. Israel is a close ally of both Great Britain and the United States, the only full democracy in the Middle East along with Iraq, and is under constant fire from Iranian and Syrian-backed terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah. Its very existence is threatened by the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran, which has malevolently warned of another Holocaust. Yet, the leader of the Liberal Democrats still thinks it’s necessary to demonise Israel, one of our only friends in the region. He’s doing everything but directly call Gaza an Israeli-administered concentration camp. In his statements, Clegg has drawn a dangerous and false parallel between the Israelis and Islamist terrorist groups. For example he wrote a piece for The Guardian in January 2009 entitled “We Must Stop Arming Israel” condemning Israel’s response to Hamas attacks, and in effect calling for the EU to isolate and even sanction Israel: Brown must stop sitting on his hands. He must condemn unambiguously Israel’s tactics, just as he has rightly condemned Hamas’s rocket attacks. Then he must lead the EU into using its economic and diplomatic leverage in the region to broker peace. The EU is by far Israel’s biggest export market, and by far the biggest donor to the Palestinians. It must immediately suspend the proposed new cooperation agreement with Israel until things change in Gaza, and apply tough conditions on any long-term assistance to the Palestinian community. (Telegraph.co.uk)

The Anti-Israel Lobby- Alan M. Dershowitz
J Street has gone over to the dark side. It claims to be “a pro-Israel, pro peace lobby.” It has now become neither. Its Executive Director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has joined the off key chorus of those who falsely claim that Israel, by refusing to make peace with the Palestinians, is placing the lives of American soldiers at risk.
This claim was first attributed to Vice President Joe Biden and to General David Petraeus. It was quickly denied by them but continued to have a life of its own in the anti-Israel media. It was picked up by Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer, Pat Buchanan and others on the hard right and hard left who share a common disdain for the Jewish state. It is the most dangerous argument ever put forward by Israel bashers. It is also totally false. It is dangerous for two reasons. First, it seeks to reduce support for Israel among Americans who, quite understandably and correctly, care deeply about American soldiers being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel has always understood this and that’s why it is one of the few American allies who has never asked the United States to put its troops in harm’s way in defense of Israeli citizens. If Americans were to believe the falsehood that Israel were to blame for American deaths caused by Islamic extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan, support for the Jewish state would suffer considerably.It is also dangerous because its implication is that Israel must cease to exist: the basic complaint that Muslim extremists have against Israel is not what the Jewish state does, but what it is: a secular, non-Muslim, democracy that promotes equal rights for women, gays, Christians and others. Regardless of what Israel does or doesn’t do, its very existence will be anathema to Muslim extremists. (Frontpagemagazine)

The ASA drops its standards-Geoffrey Alderman
The decision of the Advertising Standards Authority to ban an advertisement placed in the British press by the Israeli Government Tourist Office is not only wrong. Nor is it merely mean and malicious. It is all these things. But it also betrays a shocking partisanship on the part of the ASA, which has permitted its adjudicatory process to be prostituted in the service of rank political prejudice. The advertisement contained several photographs of typical Israeli tourist attractions, including "Jerusalem" - specifically, Jews praying at the Western Wall. A complainant argued that because this photograph - "Jerusalem" - was of a scene in East Jerusalem, it "misleadingly" implied, therefore, "that east Jerusalem was part of the state of Israel." The ASA referred the complaint to the IGTO, but then dismissed its rebuttal, as follows: "readers [of the advert] were likely to understand that the places featured in the itinerary were all within the state of Israel. We [the ASA] understood, however, that the status of the occupied territory of the West Bank was the subject of much international dispute, and because we considered that the ad implied that the part of east Jerusalem featured in the image was part of the state of Israel, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead." This is bunkum. (Thejewishchronicle)

American Neutrality Toward Israel Invites Violence-Victor Davis Hanson
When Israel is alone, its opportunistic enemies pile on.
American relations with our once-staunch ally Israel are at their lowest ebb in the last 50 years. The Obama administration seems as angry at the building of Jewish apartments in Jerusalem as it is intent on reaching out to Iran and Syria, Israel’s mortal enemies. President Obama himself, according to reports, has serially snubbed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A new narrative abounds in Washington that Israel’s intransigence with its Arab neighbors now even endangers U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East. Obama is pushing Netanyahu’s Likud government to make concessions on several fronts, from supplying power and food to Gaza to hasten Israel’s departure from the West Bank. These tensions follow the Obama administration’s new outreach to the Muslim world. Obama gave his first interview as president to the Middle East newspaper Al Arabiya, in which he politely chided past U.S. policy on the Middle East. In his June 2009 Cairo address, the president again sought to placate the Islamic world — in part by wrongly claiming that Islamic learning had sparked the European Renaissance and Enlightenment. Lost in all this reset-button diplomacy is introspection on why past American presidents sought to support Israel in the first place. We seem to forget why no-nonsense Harry Truman, against worldwide opposition, ensured the original creation of the Jewish state — or why more than 60 percent of Americans in most polls continue to side with Israel in its struggle to survive. In contrast, most of the rest of the world does the math and concludes Israel is a bad investment. It has no oil; its enemies possess nearly half the world’s reserves. (Nationalreview)

TERRORISM, security and policy

British al-Qaeda commander planned July 7-style attack on New York subway-Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent
A British al-Qaeda commander planned to emulate the July 7 London suicide bombings with a coordinated attack on the New York subway system, it has emerged.
Rashid Rauf, who also planned the transatlantic airlines plot, allegedly told three Americans to attack targets in the United States. His role in the plot emerged as a man pleaded guilty to the plot which was cracked by the FBI last September after a tip off from British intelligence. It would have been the biggest attack on US soil since September 11, according to the US Attorney General, Eric Holder. Rauf's role in the New York plot emerged as Zarein Ahmedzay, a 25-year-old former New York taxi driver, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. It is claimed they had bought the ingredients to make similar explosives as those used in the July 7 2005 bombings which killed 52 people on three tube trains and a bus in London. In court Ahmedzay said he travelled to Pakistan with two other former school friends from Queen's, New York, Najibullah Zazi and Adis Medunjanin in the summer of 2008. At the camp in the lawless region of North Waziristan, Ahmedzay said the three men offered to join the Taliban and fight US forces in Afghanistan, but were told they would be "more useful if we returned to New York City... to conduct operations." Asked by the judge what kind of operations, he said: "Suicide-bombing operations." (Telegraph.co.uk)

Terrorists Seek Next ‘Jihad Jane’ on English-Language Web Sites-Daniel Williams
April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Al-Qaeda and its ideological allies are using English-language Web sites and forums to encourage non-Arabic speakers to make war on the West as terrorists seek the next Ft. Hood shooters and “Jihad Janes.” Their goal to widen the pool of prospective terrorists beyond traditional Middle East and Asia sources is part of a search for “white al-Qaeda” activists who could foil racial profiling and initiate attacks, according to Evan Kohlmann, a consultant with FlashPoint Partners, a New York-based security research company. The effort is consistent with the gradual decentralization of Islamic-inspired holy war, he said in a telephone interview. “It’s a way al-Qaeda can say, ‘You don’t have to speak Arabic or Pashtun or come to Pakistan for training; you just have to be committed, and go out and kill people,’” Kohlmann said. Appeals for nonmembers to carry out small-scale attacks are a departure for al-Qaeda, the global terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden. It maintained centralized command and training for many years, masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. After Sept. 11, it pledged to trump the mass killing with even more spectacular assaults. As the U.S. kept up pressure on al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, its leaders exercised less control over related organizations and have begun to encourage attacks by unaffiliated individuals, Kohlmann said. Al-Qaeda released a video message in English last month by Adam Gadahn, an American- born spokesman, appealing for hits on targets big and small. (Bloomberg)

Taleban defectors 'are rejoining insurgency'-Jerome Starkey, Kabul
Almost a quarter of the low-ranking Taleban commanders lured out of the insurgency in southern Afghanistan have rejoined the fight because of broken government promises and paltry rewards, a scathing report on reintegration claims. Nato plans to spend more than $1 billion (£648 million) over the next five years tempting Taleban foot soldiers to lay down their arms. But research by a Kabul-based thinktank warns that those efforts could make matters worse by swelling the ranks of the insurgency, exacerbating village level feuds and fuelling government corruption. The report, titled Golden Surrender, by the independent Afghanistan Analysts Network, is highly critical of the British-backed Peace and Reconciliation Scheme (PTS), established in 2005, which it says has been left to flounder under bad leadership with neither the political nor the financial capital it required. It is those rotten foundations on which Nato and the Afghan government must now build as part of its two-pronged negotiation strategy of reaching out to insurgent fighters while offering political accommodation to their ideological masters. Nato claims there are up to 36,000 Taleban foot soldiers, most of them are fighting in southern Afghanistan. The PTS claims to have reconciled just 646, less than 2 per cent, over five years, including 33 commanders. “Several of these have reportedly rejoined the insurgency, including a number of low to mid-level commanders who are currently active in Helmand?Uruzgan and Kandahar," the report says. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Iran strikes secret nuclear mining deal with Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime-Itai Mushekwe and Harriet Alexander
Iran has struck a secret deal with Zimbabwe to mine its untapped uranium reserves in a move to secure raw material for its steadily expanding nuclear programme.
The agreement was sealed last month during a visit to Tehran by a close aide to Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president who last weekend celebrated 30 years in power, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
In return for supplying oil, which Zimbabwe desperately needs to keep its faltering economy moving, Iran has been promised access to potentially huge deposits of uranium ore – which can be converted into the basic fuel for nuclear power or enriched to make a nuclear bomb. "Iran secured the exclusive uranium rights last month when minister of state for Presidential affairs, Didymus Mutasa visited Tehran," said a Zimbabwean government source. "That is when the formal signing of the deal was made, away from the glare of the media." Mr Mutasa is the former lands minister in the Zanu-PF administration and one of Mr Mugabe's most senior aides. The revelation came after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, visited Zimbabwe last week to show his support for Mr Mugabe. At a lavish official dinner in his honour on Thursday evening, Mr Ahmadinejad blasted what he termed "expansionist countries" for exerting "satanic pressures on the people of Zimbabwe", adding: "We believe victory is ours, and humiliation and defeat is for our enemies."
Mr Mugabe said both Zimbabwe and Iran were targeted by the West because they wanted to manage their own natural resources. "We remain resolute in defending Zimbabwe's right to exercise it sovereignty over its natural resources. We have equally supported Iran's right to peaceful use of nuclear energy as enshrined in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty," he said. The uranium deal will heighten fears in the West that Iran is stepping up its nuclear programme, which intelligence agencies believe is intended to lead to the development of nuclear weapons in the near future. (Telegraph.co.uk)

White House Focus on Nuclear Terrorism Gets Scrutiny-KEITH JOHNSON
Some Proliferation Experts Warn Chemical or Biological Attack Is More Likely
The Obama administration's push to address the specter of nuclear terrorism has some proliferation experts fretting that the White House isn't as focused on the more likely scenario of being attacked with chemical or biological weapons. Last week's nuclear-security summit in Washington took steps to thwart attempts by al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to acquire the fuel for a nuclear bomb, which White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan called "one of the greatest threats to our national security." But some proliferation experts worry that chemical and biological weapons are much more likely to be used in a terrorist attack, and that the administration and Congress hasn't adequately addressed this threat. One example: The Obama administration has yet to name an ambassador to the Chemical Weapons Convention in The Hague, a group that monitors military-grade chemical weapons and dual-use chemicals that could be used as weapons by terrorists. A National Security Council strategy paper released in November concluded that a bioattack could kill hundreds of thousands of people and the cost of each incident could exceed $1 trillion. Chemical weapons, though less deadly, are easier to acquire and use. Nuclear terrorism would be catastrophic, but the odds of a terrorist group acquiring fissile material, assembling it, and delivering a bomb are low, given the extreme difficulty of these tasks, experts said. (WSJ)

Web of terror: Jihadis use the Internet to cow 'South Park' producers
The Comedy Central cable TV channel last week toned down an episode of its iconoclastic animated program "South Park" because of fears the previous show might stoke violent retribution by radical Muslims. In these United States, creators Trey Parkerand Matt Stone have the right to depict theProphet Muhammed as they like. They did so by cloaking him in a bear suit, suggesting that this should make the image more palatable across the world. Of course, it didn't. A New York-based Web site calling itself RevolutionMuslim.com posted a message cautioning that Parker and Stone could face dire consequences as a result of insulting the prophet. Under a picture showing the murder of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who produced a film critical of the treatment of women in Islam, the posting said: "We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid, and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them." That chilling language was accompanied by Comedy Central's New York address and the Los Angeles address of Parker and Stone's production company. And there was an ominous soundtrack: a sermon in which radical Yemen-based preacherAnwar Al-Awlaki - who has ties to the massacre at the Fort Hood military base - speaks of assassinating those who have "defamed" Muhammed. (Nydailynews)

It looks like a pen but it can foil a bomb-Karin Kloosterman
A new weapon in the arsenal shared by airport security personnel and police resembles a pen but can detect bomb detonators in powder form at as little as five micrograms.
The ACRO-P.E.T resembles a pen and can detect TATP, a peroxide bomb detonator used in many major terror attacks worldwide. It's a white crystalline powder with a distinctive acrid odor. TATP is a peroxide bomb detonator and an explosive of choice for airport bombers. If it had been detected at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the underwear bomber en route to Detroit several months ago would have been foiled much sooner. Would-be bombers have managed to smuggle TATP on board before. In 2001, Richard Reid of al-Qaeda targeted American Airlines Flight 63 with a TATP trigger for a bomb concealed in his shoe. But underwear and shoe bombers beware: A technology developed by Israelis and Americans is now your nightmare. Collaboration between an American researcher and Prof. Ehud Keinan of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology has culminated in a new way to foil terrorists carrying TATP-based explosives. Resembling a pen - although you can't write with it - the device is a new weapon in the arsenal shared by airport security personnel, police and environmentalists. Keinan and Prof. Philip Dawson from the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, recently developed and commercialized the ACRO-P.E.T. (Peroxide Explosives Tester) - a simple and cost-effective device for detecting TATP. Operated by touch, the sensitivity of the device is quite high, as it can identify as little as five micrograms of TATP, an amount that can't be seen by the human eye. An operator touches the tip of the device to the surface of the suspicious material. The tip is then removed and the operator replaces it on the "pen" and presses three levers, each of which releases 300 micro liters of solution. A color change indicates the presence of TATP. If it's there, that's the time to make arrests. "It's a next generation tool," Keinan tells ISRAEL21c, "most airports are not equipped with any devices [like this]." (Israel21c)

How Could the Fort Hood Massacre Happen?- JOSEPH LIEBERMAN AND SUSAN COLLINS
The administration continues to withhold crucial information from Congress. On March 27, 1792, the 2nd U.S. Congress voted to investigate the U.S. Army's devastating loss during the Battle of Wabash (near Fort Recovery, Ind.) at the hands of Indian warriors. A special committee was empowered "to call for such persons, papers, and records, as may be necessary to assist their inquiries"—and the first Congressional oversight investigation was set in motion.
President George Washington's cabinet unanimously agreed the administration should "communicate such papers as the public good would permit, and ought to refuse those, the disclosure of which would injure the public." Congress began getting copies a few days later. The investigation revealed embarrassing problems with the War Department's recruitment, training and supplies, among other things. But revealing the problems enabled the government to fix them. And that, in a nutshell, is why we have congressional investigations. No administration should be the sole investigator or judge and jury of its own actions. The temptation to keep damaging information from Congress and the American people is too great. The rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2009—after which U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan was charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder—has been reviewed by the administration and its group of handpicked outsiders, who were all formerly with either the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice. But the administration continues to withhold much of the crucial information from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which we are chairman and ranking member. This is just not good enough for the American people. There are too many questions that still demand answers. Whatever mistakes were made in the run-up to the Fort Hood shootings need to be uncovered, and an independent, bipartisan congressional investigation is the best way to do it. (WSJ)

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

US prepares to push for global capital rules-Tom Braithwaite
The US is preparing to pivot from domestic regulatory reform to a push for a tough new international capital regime after the weekend’s G20 and International Monetary Fund meetings glossed over differences between leading economies. Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, met Mario Draghi, chairman of the Financial Stability Board, on Sunday to discuss the contours of a system that would decide the safety and profitability of banks for decades to come and could eclipse the arguments over bank taxes and regulation.But the different positions of senior central bank and government officials from several countries expressed to the Financial Times on the sidelines of the G20 meetings in Washington suggested that a final international agreement remains a challenge. The G20 communiqué on Friday said: “We recommitted to developing by end-2010 internationally agreed rules to improve both the quantity and quality of bank capital and to discourage excessive leverage.” But participants said little time was spent on the issue and that officials were gearing up for a battle at the June meeting over the direction of the new standards, which would prevent banks from relying on short-term funding and disqualify some assets from counting towards core regulatory capital, the highest-quality loss-absorbing part of the capital structure. The most important fault line runs between a bloc of countries that includes the US, the UK and Switzerland and one that includes Germany, France and Japan. (Financialtimes)

More Global Warming Profiteering by Obama Energy Official-Chris Horner
Surprising documents [1] made available to this author reveal that Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi has a huge financial stake in companies likely to profit from the Obama administration’s “green” policies. Zoi, who left her position as CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection — founded by Al Gore — to serve as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, now manages billions in “green jobs” funding. But the disclosure documents show that Zoi not only is in a position to affect the fortunes of her previous employer, ex-Vice President Al Gore, but that she herself has large holdings in two firms that could directly profit from policies proposed by the Department of Energy. Among Zoi’s holdings are shares in Serious Materials, Inc., the previously sleepy, now bustling, friend of the Obama White House [2] whose public policy operation is headed by her husband. Between them, Zoi and her husband hold 120,000 shares in Serious Materials, as well as stock options. Reporter John Stossel has already explored what he sees as the “crony capitalism [3]” implied by Zoi being so able to influence the fortunes of a company to which she is so closely associated. In addition, the disclosure forms reflect that Zoi holds between $250,000 and $500,000 in “founders shares” in Landis+Gyr, a Swiss “smart meter” firm. She also still owns between $15,000 and $50,000 in ordinary shares. “Smart meters,” put simply, are electric meters that return information about customer power usage to the power company immediately and allow a power company to control the amount of power a customer can consume. These smart meters are a central component of the Obama administration’s plans to reduce electricity consumption as part of the “smart grid.” (Pajamasmedia)

The Global-Warming Tax-Patrick J. Michaels
Damn the data; full speed ahead!
Climategate, Copenhagen, Snowmageddon in the nation’s capital, the EPA ruling that CO2 endangers us all, and Senate Republicans pushing for a global-warming tax. Has it been a great run-up to Earth Day, or what? Never has a public-policy agenda been pursued with so little regard for scientific fact or public opinion. In March, 48 percent of Americans agreed that global warming, while real, is exaggerated. When Gallup first asked this question in 1997, only 31 percent thought the threat exaggerated. Despite this shift in sentiment, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and John Kerry (D., Mass.) and President Obama insist upon ramming a new global-warming tax (called a “fee”) through the Senate. The bill is slated to be introduced next week, and vulnerable Democrats — weary already from the pugilistic health-care debate — are fleeing the legislation in droves. And for the measure’s primary backers, the backdrop of recent developments on the climate-science landscape could not possibly be less fortuitous. Climategate revealed that a small but influential coterie of climate scientists did everything they could to present messy global-warming data as a “nice tidy story,” meticulously crafted to “hide the decline” in tree-ring-based temperatures. (I use quotes because those are the words of the warming-alarmist scientists themselves.) The fact is that tree rings are pretty poor indicators of annual warmth, especially in recent years. Dendrochronologists call this the “divergence” problem (cynics call it other names). Phil Jones, the central figure in Climategate, actually eliminated the “divergence” rather than “hiding the decline.” (Nationalreview)

SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Mobile phones, cancer and Alzheimer's disease: the ultimate study is launched-Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
The world's biggest study into whether mobile phones cause cancer and other diseases has been launched by British scientists.
More than 250,000 people in five different countries will take part in the research which is expected to last more than 30 years and cost millions of pounds. Experts hope the investigation will help settle once and for all the ongoing debate about the safety of mobile phones. Dr Mireille Toledano, one of the principal investigators from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: "This is the largest study to date worldwide on mobile phones and health and will be monitoring a large number of mobile phone users over a long time. "It will be the gold standard." Unlike earlier studies which relied on people who develop illnesses recalling their mobile phone usage, the study will pick up diseases and symptoms as they arise.
Between 90,000 and 100,000 people are expected to participate in the UK, with others joining from Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. Researchers will simultaneously monitor participants health and mobile phone usage records in such large numbers that it should provide an accurate and impartial look into their effects. The research will be roughly split into three. After five years it is hoped it will provide information on the physical effects of phone use – from headaches, to depression to general quality of life. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Hubble Telescope: Nasa releases dramatic space image to mark 20th birthday-Andrew Hough
A spectacular Nasa picture of a space constellation bearing remarkable resemblance to a “Lord of the Rings” character has been released to mark the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope.
The new image, captured earlier this year by Hubble's brand-new Wide Field Camera 3, shows a cosmic pillar of gas and dust piled high in the Carina Nebula. Located about 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina, it shows a craggy mountaintop that is enshrouded by wispy clouds which would not look out of place in JRR Tolkien's epic fantasy or even a Dr Seuss book. It captures in amazing detail the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. Nasa scientists say the scorching radiation and streams of charged particles from super-hot newborn stars shape and compress the pillar, which in turn causes more new stars to form within it. They say the colours in the image reflect the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green), and sulphur (red). The image was captured in February but released on Friday by the agency to mark the Hubble’s anniversary after it launched into space on April 24 1990 from the shuttle Discovery.
“We wanted to have an image that will be at least as spectacular as the iconic ‘pillars of creation," Mario Livio, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, told Science News in refence to the widely reproduced 1995 Hubble image of the Eagle Nebula. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Hacker-Glenn Harlan Reynolds
The Internet was designed for easy communication. Security? Not so much.
Worrying about threats to the electric grid is all the rage these days, with anxious planners troubled by electromagnetic pulse attacks or even solar superflares that could melt down the power net for months or even years, bringing civilization to a halt. But Richard Clarke and Robert Knake warn in "Cyber War" that if such a calamity occurs, the culprit behind it might not be a high-altitude nuclear burst or strange solar weather but a computer hacker in Beijing or Tehran. Over the past few decades, American society has become steadily more wired. Devices talk to one another over the Internet, with tremendous increases in efficiency: Copy machines call their own repairmen when they break down, stores automatically replenish inventory as needed and military units stay in perpetual contact over logistical matters—often without humans in the loop at all. The benefits of this nonstop communication are obvious, but the vulnerabilities are underappreciated. The Internet was designed for ease of communication; security was (and is) largely an afterthought. We have created a hacker's playground. Worse yet, computer hardware, usually made in China, is sometimes laced with "logic bombs" that will allow anyone who has the correct codes—the Chinese government comes to mind—to turn our own devices against us. Messrs. Clarke and Knake are particularly concerned with risks to the electric grid. Hackers might be able not only to trick generators into turning themselves off but also to command expensive custom equipment to tear itself apart—damage that could take months or longer to fix. The result wouldn't be a short-term blackout of the sort we're familiar with but something more like Baghdad after the Iraq invasion. And that's probably a best-case scenario. (WSJ)

Horse power at its gentle best-Ceri Radford
The benefits to autistic children of bonding with horses can be extraordinary, says Ceri Radford.
Rowen Saunders tried everything to get through to her autistic son, Oak. "I would hold him, look into his eyes, talk to him, but it only seemed to push him away," she says. Oak was diagnosed aged two and a half, after he stopped talking, started making a monotone humming noise, and became prone to inexplicable bouts of terrified rage. While he could arrange all his Thomas the Tank Engine toys in order of height, he was incapable of holding eye contact. It seemed as if nothing could get through to him; nothing, that is, until he encountered a horse for the first time. "When Stella snuffled at him, and he patted her coat, he started giggling. He loved the experience," Oak's mother remembers, eight months after the family took part in one of Britain's first Horse Boy Camps. They were set up by Rupert Isaacson, whose best-selling book of the same name describes his astonishing journey to help heal his own autistic son. Isaacson noticed his boy's affinity with horses when, aged four, he ran into a field full of them; the connection he instantly formed with a mare prompted his father to wonder if animals held the key to getting through to his world. He went to extremes to test his theory, taking his son on a horseback odyssey across Mongolia, which dramatically improved the boy's condition, leaving him free of agonising temper tantrums, and finally toilet-trained. Now, however, families like the Saunders do not have to venture so far. (Telegraph.co.uk)

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